Re: Other boards ....

Rex,

There's at least one Yahoo list that was started with similar intentions...
and it's VERY quiet... I wish it weren't so, but it is.

Marsha

"VegasRex" <vegas1@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1145994569.260371.276440@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
X-No-Archive

Since someone else just brought this up, I would like to get feedback
from this Usenet Group. I like this group, cool people. I used it
frequently back when I used to visit here.

But, now I live here.

I was going to set up a new board on the .net side of our current
domain (www.vegasrex.net) which is currently just redirected to the
.com site, but I am concerned that it will simply be redundant and left
to stagnate unused.

I was thinking of setting up a board primarily for Las Vegas RESIDENTS,
and not completely vacation oriented (but anyone could participate of
course). I have a lot of local poker players that use the Poker Board I
set up ... but 90% of them just read and PM.

The new board I was thinking about would be run much like Usenet, with
perhaps a couple of benefits that people may or may not find useful.

Like Usenet, it would not be moderated (except for SPAM). A problem
with some of the other "boards" I have seen is that they have all
kinds of "terms of use" and it eventually evolves into some kind of
animal-farm moderator ass-kissing thing.

I once posted a request to a supposedly Las Vegas board for a
recommendation for a local mechanic, and the moderator bounced me
because I posted an "off topic" question. Turns out the guy who
runs it lives in New Jersey or someplace, and he claimed that a bunch
of users complained that it was off-topic. They were all
out-of-towner's who wanted to talk about gambling and shows. Okay ...

Then I once posted to the RJ Forums with my poker URL in my signature,
and I got chastised by the moderators for having a URL in my signature.
The "rules" are why I generally steer clear of "boards". I'm
too old for "rules" now .. but unfortunately fewer and fewer people
are staying with Usenet. They are going with commercial groups on
Yahoo or Google.

The whole obscenity thing is silly too, IMHO. I don't believe in
obscenities. If it wasn't beat into our heads that certain sequences
of characters were "bad", then likely none of us would give those
characters a second thought. It's simply a form of expression. This
pretty much leaves Usenet as the last bastion of being able to say what
you want.

That's why I don't know if I should bother with a new one.

If I did, it would also be the same as Usenet in that it can be
accessed from any computer with web access and was not censored.

The main drawback is that messages are not available through your
favorite Usenet reader, and the posts are not generally archived in
Google, etc.


The other benefits to a Board run on something like Phorum would be the
following:

Immediate message posting. No propagation delays and out-of-sequence
messages as the dwindling number of NNTP servers pass messages around.

The ability to receive an email or wireless Text Message notice when a
thread you are "subscribed" to has had a message posted to it.
This way you know as soon as someone responds (if you really care that
much). The feature is easily turned on and off.


Many forms of improved privacy.

- Your IP address will not be viewable by the public (it is logged by
the server for debugging purposes only, and eventually deleted).

- You can private message other users securely on the server without
revealing your email address or IP address. Send and receive private
messages without compromising your location or identity. It's up to
you how much or little someone knows.

- Your email address is hidden by default. This means that SPAM bots
cannot access you in any way, shape, or form.

- Your posts are not publicly associated with an email address, and you
can delete your posts at will if you hit the send button and decide
later that you may have been a bit hasty, or just in a bad mood.

- You can edit your posts, so you can actually fix your typos.

- You can attach files to your posts.

- You can have silly avatars and smilies (some people actually like
this stuff).

- We control our own board, not Google, Yahoo, or whoever.

Email-confirmed boards are also harder to SPAM, and SPAM can be deleted
really quickly on Phorum powered boards.

The features, layout, and all of the other settings will be determined
by the users. Users can decide what the settings should be, and we
would implement what local residents want (at least as much as
possible). It would more or less be a startup board from the very
ground up modelled by and for residents and especially a.v.l-v
participants.

It would more or less be tailored for the actual LV Residents that
frequently post on alt.vacation.las-vegas.

Most current boards already have tons of loyal followers, and I don't
want to spend the time to throw a party that nobody attends.

I don't know. What do you guys think? Would anyone frequently use the
board, or would I simply put up the Internet equivalent of a ghost
town?

Or maybe alt.vacation.las-vegas is prefect as-is ....

Feedback?



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